Microprocessor devices (“processors”) utilize external pins to interface with other components within a computer system. In present computer technology, as the complexity and processing power of microprocessors grow, the number of external pins required to interface the host microprocessor with the other components of the computer system also increases. Those other components include a plurality of separate devices such as processors, memories, and peripheral devices, interconnected by one or more buses. Decreasing the number of external pins decreases the cost of the microprocessor and/or the system and memory buses as well as decreases the cost and complexity of the interface circuitry.
Computer networks often use what is known as a “client/server system” in which a network host or “host computer” can provide centralized hardware, computation, database access, software resources and network control functions for a number of “client computers” in the network. The client/server model has become one of the central approaches of network computing. Most of the business applications being written today use the client/server model. Traditional network architectures arrange the network server and clients as separate and individually controlled units. Each client is typically a stand-alone PC computer, and as such can operate independently of the network host. Likewise the server is generally a fully independent computer, and is capable of independent processing, power cycling and reset/re-initialization.
Most of these client/server systems contain a reset signal if the host and the client lose connection. The reset signal typically requires a separate reset pin which reduces pin efficiency because it is rarely used and therefore does not contribute to increasing the data flow through the pins on the system and memory buses. The main reason for reset pins is to provide a guaranteed method to force the system into a predetermined state in the case of error conditions in the system, wherein the host can always reset the client through the reset pin.
A traditional reset command transferred through a control bus, for example, cannot replace the reset pin because that assumes that the client continuously monitors the control bus and reacts correctly to the reception of a reset command from the host. However, this is not the case, because if the client does not honor a reset command from the host, the system can remain in an un-deterministic state.
This type of reset scheme applies also to bus structures within a single computer, rather than to two networks, such as a host component circuitry (e.g., a processor instead of a computer) and a client component circuitry (e.g., a memory or modem device instead of another computer).
Accordingly, there is a need to provide a system and method for reducing the pin count of a microprocessor. These and other advantages of the present invention not specifically recited above will become apparent within discussions of the present invention herein.